The scientists simplified and improved imaging of biomolecules and the Nobel Foundation says the method they developed moved biochemistry into a new era.

In 1990, Richard Henderson, who began studies for a Ph.D. at Cambridge University in 1966, succeeded in using an electron microscope to generate a three-dimensional image of a protein at atomic resolution. This breakthrough proved the technology’s potential.

Electron microscopes were long believed to only be suitable for imaging dead matter, because the powerful electron beam destroys biological material.

Joachim Frank made the technology generally applicable. Between 1975 and 1986 he developed an image processing method in which the electron microscope’s fuzzy twodimensional images are analysed and merged to reveal a sharp three-dimensional structure.

Jacques Dubochet added water to electron microscopy. Liquid water evaporates in the electron microscope’s vacuum, which makes the biomolecules collapse. In the early 1980s, Dubochet succeeded in vitrifying water – he cooled water so rapidly that it solidified in its liquid form around a biological sample, allowing the biomolecules to retain their natural shape even in a vacuum.

The desired atomic resolution was reached in 2013, and researchers can now routinely produce three-dimensional structures of biomolecules.